Greening the Cherry Blossoms

What’s pink and green and pretty all over? Tokyo’s annual cherry blossom season, of course. And by green, we’re talking eco-friendly. Now let me explain.

The Japanese custom of viewing cherry blossoms (known as sakura in Japan) dates back to before the 8th century. Blooming all over Japan from mid-January to early-May, the trees tend to flower in Tokyo in late-March or early-April, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors to Chidorigafuchi Park to view its 200-plus baby-pink flowered cherry trees. That’s a LOT of visitors!

With so many people coming by to take in the trees’ beauty, the park lights the flowers at night to make the most out of the brief viewing time of the one- to two-week-long cherry blossom season. In years past, the trees were illuminated at night with halogen lamps—which not only consumed excess energy, but also damaged the flowers with heat and ultraviolet rays. 

But this year, Tokyo decided to make the festival a little greener, replacing many of the existing lights were replaced with more energy-efficient, flower-friendly solid-state floodlights. Built with LUXEON K2 with TFFC (Thin Film Flip Chip) LEDs from Philips Lumileds, Nagasaki-based lighing manufacturer INEX Corp. developed the new LED luminaires with engineering support from LUXEON supplier Future Lighting Solutions. The result is a lighting scheme that slashes energy use and carbon emissions by more than 90 percent! (Yes,I said 90 percent!)

Here’s to adding some green to the cherry blossom! Know of any other annual festivals going green? Let us know about it here!

--Jessie Bove

The Colonel Goes to China?

There’s a chain of fried chicken restaurants in China that has a logo that may look familiar. The logo for  “Ji'a'po” seems eerily similar to KFC's (Colonel Sander's) brand. The similarities are so close that Chinese consumers apparently have nicknamed the fast-food look-alike “the long-lost sister" of the KFC Colonel. Is it his sister, wife or daughter? And I thought these kind of things only happened in Pine Valley.

Here's how Walletpop.com compared the two designs: “Like the classic KFC logo, the woman's navy blue, pink and white image appears on signs that are, indeed, the same shade of red as KFC's iconic signs; she too is shaded on the left, as if the light source is coming from the chain's name. She even has an identical Southern "welcome-home" smile as does Colonel Sanders. Her glasses are the same style; her hair swoops up and to the left, like the Colonel's.”

If you’re an icon brand, imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery. If it were anyplace else (other than China), Ji’a’po would have been heavily fined, tarred and feathered, (ironically not unlike the taste of KFC chicken) and the ex-Mrs. KFC would have had to change her looks.

Mrs. KFC’s “kiss my grits” smile is probably due to the fact that she knows there will be no possible copyright infringement suit. The Sun reports that "KFC chiefs had called for the takeaway to be closed down, but Chinese trade authorities have given the green light to the chain." But apparently, China's State Administration for Industry & Commerce in China told KFC that Ji'a'po isn't infringing on the American chain's intellectual property. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the concept of intellectual or artistic property does not exist in China. Wake up retailers!

And now a strange, but true KFC factoid:
What do “Pretty in Pink,” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” have in common with KFC? The recently deceased and legendary film director, John Hughes, was a Leo Burnett Advertising copywriter on the Kentucky Fried Chicken account in the 1970s. Former agency partner Robert Birkenes recalls in Advertising Age, that Hughes  "was always coming up with some wild, offbeat ways to creatively promote the Colonel's chicken." True, but I bet he wasn’t responsible for the debacle in China.

--Ron Knoth, Guest Blogger
 

Starbucks Tries Something New

"I'll have a Venti Merlot, please."

Only in my dreams, right? Perhaps not. While I'm sure they hope their maniacal Starbucks fans continue to crave no-whip, half-caff, mocha light frappucinnos on a daily (if not hourly) basis, the Seattle-based coffee company is quietly testing a new concept on the block. It sells coffee, teas and the like as expected, but add to that a dash of ice cream, local pastries and a wine and beer menu. Suddenly the craving is not just breakfast oriented...but happy hour savvy. And hint hint: it's not called Starbucks.

Introducing the new 15th Ave. Coffee & Tea concept, a locally driven test concept Starbucks launched in the Capitol Hill area in Seattle in July. The new store is part of a test that will include an additional two Seattle shops, similarly named after their surrounding neighborhoods. The coffeehouse design draws inspiration from the original Starbucks location opened in Seattle’s Pike Place Market 38 years ago, and features materials and furnishings that are recycled, reused or locally sourced, such as a community table made using wood from an old ship and bartops from shuttered Starbucks locations. Just a pleasant, authentic neighborhood coffeehouse vibe. In this diva's mind, Starbucks got it right. For more pics, visit the DDI Project Gallery.

P.S. The store manager, Jenna, even has her own blog with updates on events and store happenings. Very un-corporate. Very cool. They also have a Twitter page (@15thAveCoffee), for the super social-net savvy.

--Diva

Photo: Courtesy of Starbucks Corp.

Place Your Bets on Store Windows, Literally

To promote tune-in for the season premiere of Bravo's Top Chef: Las Vegas on Aug. 19, Monster Media and Fallon Worldwide cooked up an interactive casino in the storefront of the NBC Experience Store window in Rockefeller Plaza, N.Y.

The campaign, which runs through Aug. 31, uses eight linked LCD walls to feature two interactive slot machines that pedestrians can play by texting on their cell phones. Once pedestrians engage with the Top Chef display, they receive text messages back, and if lucky enough, receive a message that tells them how to redeem a prize. All texters are entered in a contest to win a grand prize of $5,000 or a trip to the Top Chef kitchen in Las Vegas.

"The goal of the campaign is to increase awareness of the show, drive traffic to the Bravo Web site and encourage users to sign-up for Bravo's mobile club, where members can receive games, show updates, and more, on their cell phones," said John Payne, president of Monster Media.

The interactive window also tracks the number of texters and the time of all texts, giving Bravo a measure of the campaign's effectiveness. Did you hear that retailers? A way to track effectiveness! Gotta love that. Bravo to Bravo for implementing such a high-tech window campagin!

--Katy Bachman

Retailers Are Like Boyfriends

Whether you are married, living with someone, dating, or single, we all know that we are attracted to certain retailers--just like we are to men or women. Unfortunately, we spend more quality time with our retail boyfriends than our real-life ones.
 
Freud described this phenomenon as the Oedipus Complex, unconsciously becoming attracted to a mate who personifies the (repressed) attributes of our mommy or daddy, (involuntary shudder) which still gives me the creeps just thinking about it.
 
They say for every pot there is a lid…Example: if you are attracted to those bad-boy types, you probably shop at Ed Hardy, maybe Marc Jacobs (just to make Ed jealous), or that shirtless flirt, Abercrombie & Fitch. Trust me--those retailing bad boys are high maintenance.
 
If you are attracted to the kind of men that you’d bring home to your mom, you probably shop at GANT, Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, Coach or Cole Haan. They are respectable, they are the kind of retailing boyfriends whose stores (homes) already look like the club room at a (non-restricted) country club, and besides, they are financially stable. They make excellent retailing boyfriends. Tally Ho!
 
Once in everyone’s life, we have to have a retail boyfriend we regret-- summer fling--and what’s more attractive than an European accent, which is why a Euro-trash retailing boyfriend like Louis Vuitton, Versace, Ferregamo, Prada, or Gucci fits the bill. (See “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.”) At first, it’s all glamour and romance, and then it fizzles like a cigarette butt in a coffee cup in a lonely sidewalk café. Don’t let this happen to you.
 
Ask yourself: Is ebay, Amazon or Bluefly your Match.com?
 
Some of us go for those intellectual, geeky types (remember the board game “Mystery Date”…"I got the dud”?) If so, Thom Browne, Kenneth Cole, Zac Posen and Isaac Mizrahi might just be your cup of tea. Granted, they themselves may not show up in a sequel to “Revenge of The Nerds,” but they personify the sort of retailing boyfriends that are smart, appreciate us and, most importantly, won’t cheat on us (like A&F).
 
I, alas, prefer the sophisticated scoundrel, as personified by the sexy Tom Ford and Dolce & Gabbana. These are retailing boyfriends who are seductive, slick and promise you the world. Granted, they treat us terribly. They’re nothing more than retailing gigolos. Sure they will tell you that you’re the only one, but rest assured, they make fun of you as you exit the store. Boo…Hoo…Hoo. Shamefully, we go back for more.
 
Are you the all-American who sees themselves with the boy next door? You know, the winsome athletic type...if so, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Todd Oldham (Old Navy), L..L Bean, and Michael Bartlett (Claiborne) are the perfect groom atop your retailing wedding cake. They’re cute, take a great picture and always look like they just took a shower. They’re not a threat to others, but your friends are all envious of them.
 
Are you into biker-types like John Varvatos, Christian Audigier and Rock & Republic? Watch out, these retailing boyfriends have a dark side--they’re unpredictable and are dangerous. If you wear them out, you’ll get a bad reputation. You’ve been warned.

I need to go to retail couples therapy. The question is: how am I going to get Phineas Cole through the door?

Which retailer have you been dating? Tell us here! Inquiring minds want to know...

--Ron Knoth, Guest Blogger

Photo: Carlo Dapino|Dreamstime.com

Le Vigne Wine Shop: A Recession-Ready Reality

Here's a story that might lift your day. Sommelier Carlo Orrico just opened a "cute as a button" wine shop in New York's Greenwich Village--a 600-sq.-ft. space next to Jonathan Adler's boutique, which he found in an ad on Craigslist.com. After signing the lease for "Le Vigne," he hired architecture firm MADLAB LLC with the goal of breaking the mold of traditional wine shopping.

As the design process went underway, the price tag quickly went up. Orrico's dreams of custom features and design elements pushed the cost higher than the novice shop owner had imagined. Lucky for him, MADLAB brought in the artist collective Spurse and came up with a turnkey solution that would compress the design process into a simple, to-the-heart-of-it solution: three client meetings, three design drawings and three weeks of installation. No problem, right?

Armed with "tools, truckloads of thrift shop furniture and a knack for experiential carpentry," the design team decided to leave the excavated space as is and used recycled and repurposed second-hand furniture as the primary design approach.

The result is a 25-ft.-long massive assemblage of tables, drawers, lids and chair legs--all painted white in the center aisle and along the side wall--that allows an abundance of surfaces, nooks and clusters to display the shop's collection of artisanal wines in a unique and clever way. Cheap. Brilliant.

Design creativity rules!

--Alison Embrey Medina

Want Not

“Waste not, want not!” Ancient proverb

Can retailers learn a lesson from the art world? Is conspicuous consumption and gross consumerism high art? The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) thinks it may be. Currently on exhibit (until Sept. 7) is “Waste Not,” a conceptual installation by the Beijing artist Song Dong. The exhibit is the talk of the town, and the lines to see the show thread through the museum like a ball of untwisted yarn. The consciousness-raising installation consists of the complete contents of his parents’ rural home in China, which was amassed over 50 years during which the Chinese concept of “wu jin qi yong” or "waste not" was a prerequisite for survival. (A time when individuals could not amass wealth, but could collect things in reciprocity, the harsh years of the Cultural Revolution.)

The contents of the Dong home are laid out systematically and categorically on the floor, in artfully constructed piles and rows. It’s as neat and orderly as a J. Crew catalog, if J. Crew could catalog our lives. The Dong family treasures are ordinary items like empty water bottles, and partially used tubes of tooth paste. The Dong family was not the Beales. They were a typical family, no different in many respects from you or I.

Much is made of Chinese consumer goods and imports invading America--this is the exception to the rule! Shamefully, it seems like the Chinese and Americans have an awful lot in common.
 
The exhibit is set up in a maze-like configuration so that you can meander about the contents (almost as if you are in a garden of things) and get so close to the items that you could pick them up in your hands like a rose--but please don’t! Children find the loot almost irresistible. There are piles of clothes, piles of medicinals and piles of soap--some rise so high as to suggest a cityscape. Then you come upon all the shoes, all the shoe boxes, all the plastic bags, all the designer shopping bags, all the dishes, chopsticks and flatwear. There are empty water jugs and empty water bottles, not to mention hundreds of bottle tops, all the toys, including dolls with missing limbs and rotting stuffed animals. There are rows and rows of pens, bundled twine and jump ropes. Stacks of poetic empty birdcages, stacks of magazines, stacks of pans and woks. The unfathomable and incomprehensible waste makes one reconsider the values of Capitalism. I’ll warn you in advance, the exhibit is voyeuristic, as if you are walking through someone’s mind, and then you realize it’s yours.
 
By placing the items on the floor, viewers cast their eyes downwards in amazement of all the “stuff” that has been collected. The exhibit creates a kind of phrenetic anxiety. While the contents may seem foreign at first glance, and therefore exotic (ergo easy to dismiss), ultimately we see ourselves, our own social disease, and hear our inner monologue, “What if everything I owned was laid out for the world to see, how would I be scrutinized? What would people think about me?”
 
So let me ask you: do you save empty margarine containers, bubble wrap, tissue paper? Do you hold onto plastic grocery bags, rubber bands? Do you have a jar of paper clips or dead felt tip pens? Would you want your neighbors to see how many pairs of shoes you own and how few pairs of underwear you have? It starts to get scary when you think about what’s “stored” in your closet, “stored” in your drawers, and how many cardboard boxes of stuff you have squirreled away in your basement, attic or garage. We are trained to be compulsive “savers” and sheep-like shoppers.
 
Now some back story...Dong’s father was once an officer in the Cultural Revolution, but was accused of being a spy and remanded to prison for years. This plummeted the family into deprivation, poverty and shame. Grief-stricken, Dong’s mother compensated by hoarding. Years later Dong’s father was released,  and ordered to work in a button factory until his death in 2002. Dong’s mother believed that by obtaining things she might alleviate her grief, creating a false kind of attachment to things--what we here in the States call “retail therapy.”
 
Retail is based on the precepts of replaceable goods, disposable items. American retail is based on the notion of the power and amount of things as being tantamount to our status. Think about Bed, Bath & Beyond, Office Max and Amazon. Having more means we are valued more. We are indoctrinated to order the economical jumbo size, and a second one for half price. Even octo-moms are deified for over-production. Today’s consumer is way ahead of the retailers. Our homes, our pocketbooks and our office cubicles are jammed full of relatively meaningless stuff. We are more interested in having less and having better. Retailers do yourself a favor and get yourself to MoMA to see what your customers really think about “stuff.” It may make you question what you sell and why.

DuPont Corian Lights Up Its New York Design Studio

A space to show off the diverse capabilities of DuPont Corian is an understatement. The new DuPont Corian Design Studio in New York's Flatiron district is a full-out appeal to the senses. The 5,000-sq.-ft. space is intended to be an interactive workshop where designers can consult directly with experts to address project-specific needs. And there's plenty of pretty things to look at, too.

Designed by architects Michael Morris and Yoshiko Sato of New York-based Morris Sato Studio, the space uses lighting, sound and shape technology to create "a sanctuary of space." Innovative lighting fixtures hang from the ceiling, featuring a thin skin of Corian wrapping elongated tubes with color-changing LEDs. The space is segmented by industry, opening with a multi-use wall, and then separating for hospitality, kitchen, bath, corporate and healthcare usages. A fitting showroom for a limitless product.

--Alison Embrey Medina

Social Media Mania

Jones Lang LaSalle is looking to add a few friends to its Facebook page. The real estate giant has launched a social media campaign for 22 of its malls using Facebook and Twitter. Messages on the platforms will send shoppers updates on special promotions, events and sales.

The social media campaign has been rolled out for 13 of Jones Lang LaSalle’s malls, and will be introduced for nine more by the end of the year. It is intended to give consumers a direct line to their local mall and the individual retailers in each, with insider information that might not be otherwise promoted in traditional advertising outlets. (Hello, secret sales!)

For example, retailer Body Central at the Village Mall in Auburn, Ala., recently promoted the fact that it has put up a wall of Auburn-themed merchandise in time for the start of the local football season.

“Back-to-school and holiday 2009 are more critical than they’ve ever been for the retail industry,” saysGreg Maloney, president and CEO of Jones Lang LaSalle Retail. “We know that by engaging with our shoppers, members of the community and even retailers at our own centers, we will be able to increase traffic and give a boost to the entire retail sector.”

The social media campaign was developed by Dallas-based The Dealey Group, which also coordinated Jones Lang LaSalle’s 2008 “Black Friday” campaign. Last year’s effort asked shoppers to text a keyword when they arrived at the mall to receive updates on holiday deals directly on their phones.

Let the tweeting begin!

--Alex Palmer

Buying into the Bite

Remember the days of a classic, traditional vampire plot line? Well forget them. These days, box office smashes like the “Twilight Saga” and hit television series like “True Blood” have taken these monsters and turned them into leading men. With this surge of popularity in recent years, it’s not surprising that vampire stories have come out of the coffin and into the shops of our favorite retailers.

Recently, big-time movie production agencies have partnered with big-time retailers. Summit Entertainment, who of course is responsible for bringing “Twilight” to the big screen, has now found a new niche in the retailing industry, signing with both Nordstrom and teen clothing retailer Hot Topic. Both stores have been granted the rights to have “Twilight”-inspired merchandise designed and sold exclusively at their stores. The collection will include T-shirts, jackets, dresses, jewelry and key chains, with phrases like “Team Edward” or “Team Jacob.” Can you imagine the line of excited tweens ready to sink their teeth into these products when the line debuts on Oct. 15?
 
With the vampire craze in full swing, many people believe consumers not only want to dress like their favorite villain, but they also want to drink with them, too. No, not the mass selling of A-positive and O-negative blood on the black market. Rather, a soda-like drink inspired from HBO’s “True Blood” will soon be on store shelves. The drink, which appears on the show as a “blood substitute” for vampires, will be a slightly tart and lightly sweetened, blood-orange drink, marketed as “All Flavor, No Bite.”

How well will the franchises fare away from their entertainment settings? Only time will tell whether the vampire craze will see continued success or end up lifeless. Tell the Retail Design Diva your prediction!

--Jaime Moricco, Guest Blogger, LIM student